Dancing in the Rain (The TUSH Duology-Book 2)

Prologue

Thursday, January 21

At last, I was back on campus. It was warm for winter, although I guess I was back in San Antonio. Everything's warmer compared to back in Kansas. I was only here for six months compared to the nearly twenty years I spent up there.

I'm currently lying on my will-be bed as my parents and Anne unpack all my stuff and put it all over the place. Anne walks up to me and says, "You know, Willow, this is your room. You should at least have a hand in getting moved in."

I sigh. "I know that. It's just the flight and..."

"This place brings back bad memories, doesn't it?"

I nod. "And good ones. I'm not sure whether I wanted to come back, but it's too late to be pondering that."

"I get you." Anne pats me on the shoulder. "We're all feeling a little uncertain."

I roll my eyes. "If I haven't heard that a hundred times..."

Anne's the one to sigh now. She pinches the fabric of the jacket I'm wearing right now. "Are you sure you're not hot in this?"

"I am." I roll onto one side, away from Anne. "I'm just too tired to take it off."

"You mean too angsty, don't you?" Anne leans with one hand on the bed.

"Don't say that," I hiss. "You're not the one who had their life turned upside-down last semester."

"Willow, I thought you understood." Anne shakes her head in disappointment. "Everyone's going through tough times right now--"

"Don't tell me about tough times!" I spring upright in bed. "Spout one more piece of 'rona propaganda at me, and I will scream, and I cannot guarantee that that scream won't cause some unholy disaster. You were there when I found out I was a--"

Before I can say anything else, Mom approaches me from the other side holding a stack of sheets. "Willow..." she says, looking down at me with a sheepish smile. "We need to make your bed."

I sigh and get out of bed, instead lying down on the second bed that Dad made into a couch. I close my eyes, hoping I could exit this plane of consciousness. Above my head, I can hear Mom and Anne talking.

"I guess last semester was a bit hard on her," Anne admits.

Mom sighs. "Well, there was nothing we could do to prevent her staying home. With this virus going around, the school just didn't want too many people on campus."

"This is my fault," Anne insists. "If I hadn't moved in with you and brought George with me, she wouldn't have felt obligated to turn him into a sorcerer."

"I knew this whole sorcery business was malarkey from the start. I thought you were raising him to be a child of the Lord."

"This isn't about raising George to be a child of the Lord," Anne asserts. "This is about bringing the dark into the light, whether that be through the Lord or through these astral spirits."

"Never mind," Mom resigns herself. "Just help me make the bed."

I can hear the fwoomping of the sheets being spread over the bed. I was waiting for Mom to continue the conversation, and by conversation, I mean argument. Suddenly, I'm no longer trying to fall asleep but now trying to see if my staying home caused some permanent and sometimes damaging waves in this family.

That's when Anne says it: "Mom, do you even believe God exists?"

I don't even need to see the two to know the air's gone cold between them. Then Mom scoffs. "Anne Melanie Weiss, I thought I raised you better than that. Of course God exists. Why would you even ask such a question?"

"Well, I've had George on my mind lately. George and Willow. Mom, it's our job to adopt demons into our family and bring them to the light, right?"

Mom nods with such aggression that I can hear her neck popping.

"And you know how Willow's sorcerer friend told us he wasn't a demon but some kind of 'dark astral spirit'?"

"The Irish kid with the sour attitude? I remember him."

"I wouldn't call Benny 'sour,' but I'm glad you remember him. Anyway, if what we thought was a demon was actually a dark astral spirit, does that mean all the angels we know of are light astral spirits that Willow and her friends worship?"

A few seconds of silence. No doubt Mom was making some kind of face.

Anne sighs, and then shouts, "There is no god!"

"Only the astral spirits!" I shout back instinctively. I guess being a sorcerer for the past year and a half drilled me to do that. Only one more way I was separated from my family: I no longer believed in God, though if this conversation turns south for these two, Anne might just join me. I'm surprised Anne didn't join me last semester. With everything that happened...

No. I can't. I just need to shove that away along with the rest of the long list of memories I'm trying to block out.

Just then, I hear a voice. A male voice, and it isn't Dad's. "Willow, you're back!"

My eyes shoot open. Matt's sitting at my feet with Stella on his shoulder like a pirate's parrot.

"Matt!" I shout without thinking. "How did you..."

And then I remember. His latest project is teleporting without standing, and I've got to say, he's getting pretty good at it if he's going to scare me like this.

"So how's campus life so far?" He pats me on the arm.

I shake him off. "Matt, I've only been on campus for an hour. I can't really say."

"Either way, it's so great to have you on campus again. I guess Benny's moving back into UTSA this semester, too. It'll be like having the gang back together. Kai and I have both missed you so much."

"Ah, yes. The Spirit Daddies," I chuckle.

"Quiet, Willow." Matt puts a finger over my lips. "Only Kai and I can say that."

"Where is Kai, anyway?"

"He doesn't move in until tomorrow," Matt explains. "He's in Lightner this semester."

"So he was in Thomas last year, and now he's in Lightner," I muse. "Will he ever leave Sophomore College?"

"Lightner isn't in Sophomore College," Matt corrects me. "It just happens to be connected to Thomas, which is in Sophomore College." He leans into my ear. "Though he got a big-boy dorm in North last semester, but let's not talk about that."

"What did you two put in your applications to live on campus?" I ask.

"Mine was somewhere along the lines of 'requiring to stay on campus so that I may complete an essential activity that can only be done on Trinity campus.' Kai might have said something a bit different but with the same gist."

"And they bought staying with Stella as a reason to stay on campus," I giggle. "Why couldn't you just take her home?"

"How are my parents going to react when they see me come home with a baby spirit?" Matt answers a question with another question. "They'll probably freak out if they find out I'm a sorcerer."

"My parents know I'm a sorcerer, and they're chill with it," I tell him.

"They are?"

I sit up and look over my shoulder. "Mom, Dad, do you know I'm a sorcerer?"

"Yeah," Dad answers.

"Sadly, yes," Mom sighs.

"How do they know that?" Matt asks.

I look into his eyes. "Remember how I stayed home last semester?"